I was just recently thinking about and discussing with Adam how good life felt. Yes life is hectic with three kids, but we are kinda in a good routine and it seems to be working out alright. Plus the holidays are here and they make us all super happy. I know they stress out a lot of people, but my family enjoys them. We do some fun things as a family together. Plus kids make every holiday so fun. Adam and I were discussing finances and how to get some things finally paid off by the end of the year. We were stoked having some goals set of how to better ourselves with medical bills and debt payments, but still have a fun Christmas. (Last year we didn't have any money for gifts for each other and my kids got mostly hand-me-down gifts for themselves) Seems like just when you are enjoying your blessings, life turns around on you. It's like an invitation for trials when all seems well for too long, and you notice.
Anyway, so here is where things took a turn. We rent a duplex. No we still don't own a house. We never bought one in Reno, cause we never knew if we would stay there and housing was crazy expensive. We didn't want to get upside down in something. I'm glad we didn't, I really think we felt inspired not to. I know too many people who are upside down in their houses there. Moving to St George to start a new job/new business was very challenging for us. We spent all our savings to do so and had to live off credit cards for a while, cause Adam made a very little salary. It was really hard. Sometimes couldn't make ends meet hard. We then moved to Hurricane to take over an office and that was a huge blessing. So here we are renting a duplex to see if we like living in Hurricane and to pay off debt and save up for a house. Anyway recently our 2nd bathroom's floor has been bubbling up. We had this happen in our Sparks house in the kitchen, cause the dishwasher had a leak. So we told the Landlord, and she didn't do anything. Then our neighbor's bedroom that shares a wall with that bathroom started to leak into her closet and into her floor. We thought our pipes were leaking into theirs. Our landlord still didn't do a lot. We then had this huge long thunder storm, and our landlord just happen to come over the next day. Our poor neighbor's hadn't been using that room and had no idea the floor was now completely soaked, and the landlord thought they weren't taking care to even clean it up. Well long story short after visits from plumbers, we found out the roof is leaking through the attic down into both sides of our houses. Theirs got it worse, our floor was just bubbling. They found mold in theirs and they had a few of them get sick. So the landlord actually gave them a 30 day notice to get out. Their contract was up, and she's gotta fix a bunch of stuff, so she kicked them out. She can legally do that, the annoying thing is she wanted them to pay regular rent to live in mold. Not very cool, they were understandably ticked off. Plus the Owner (who lives in California) wants their son to move in. Our neighbors got the shaft, it was all very dramatic. With many more details I'm not going into.
We are under contract still so she can't boot us. So she sent a handyman over to tear up the floor and see how bad the damage was on our side. Well he tore it up and there was also lots of black mold underneath our floor. So the handyman told me all about how unhealthy it is, and how if our landlord doesn't fix it right, then we need to move. Bleh bleh bleh, freaking me out. All sorts off drama/stress. So the landlord came over and talked it down like it wasn't as bad and she'd get it fixed. But if we felt uncomfortable than we could be out of the contract and move. HOWEVER, since she gave us a choice to move, and told us she'd fix it, we can't demand help for a down payment or anything. Adam and I are also not aggressive in that way. I was already stubborn as I could be when she was trying to "talk down" the seriousness of it. I told her I didn't know that I liked my kids and new baby breahting that in. ANYWAY, we did look for other rentals that night and came up a little short. Everything that could fit us was expensive. So why not look into buying you might be thinking? Guess what, we don't have lots saved, definitely not 20 percent like you always hear suggested. We also still have debt people, it doesn't go away fast. Plus we have baby bills. SO-life is fun. We don't have money to once again only six months later - box up a house, rent another moving truck, pay a first month's rent, and deposit, etc. You get the point. We are poor and life sucks when it comes to this.
So we called a friend in Reno who cleans up mold, fire damage, water damage, etc for his job and has done it for a while. He gave us lots of good advice. Like first, seal off the bathroom they just left ripped up. Once the mold is disturbed the spores move all over the house looking for damp places to live. Also potentially making anyone, including kids sick if they have allergies to mold. How do you know if your kids have mold allergies you might wonder, if they get sick!!! We also can't use the AC or Heater, cause it could just push it around our house. Lovely. Good thing we have a space heater for Milo's room and warm pajamas for the others. We decided that we'd wait to see how our landlord would fix our house, she was looking into in. NOW in her defense I do truly believe she thinks she is doing stuff right when it comes to fixing this thing. And she is trying to fix it quick. And we do agree on some things. However, she hasn't even talked to a professional company that cleans this stuff to come look. She talked to a biologist that says the mold won't spread how we were told it is. Well we talked to one in our ward that told us it already has. She says the owners, (she's just the sister of them who manages the place) wanna send someone up from California this week to fix it. I have no idea if that will happen or who that is. So we went to look for rentals again and didn't find anything too promising in Hurricane, La Verkin, or Toquerville. Everything was really trashy and scary areas to live in, or expensive. So this week we made appointments with a professional company that is coming to assess the intensity. He's in our ward and doing it for free. We have Milo's 4 month doctor's appointment and I plan to talk to her about it. Good timing, cause he is sick, I am sick, but was before the floor got ripped up, and I think Ollie could be getting a cold. Meaning we could all have mold allergies. Or not? I don't know! What is common cold and what do I blame on the house? My sore throat I did have before the floor, so did I get my kids sick or the mold? It's causing me some SERIOUS stress. We also have an appointment with a mortgage guy to assess how soon we can get into a house and get some advice. We don't want to move and she doesn't want us to move, but we don't know how to fix things either. We weren't planning on this, so we didn't save money for another move. So even the soonest we could isn't till November. Maybe, if we could find something. HOWEVER, if the guy from our ward can prove it's really yucky, and if my doctor freaks me out enough, I might be ripping into this landlord to move us out. I'm just not that brave, and we don't have a good enough "proven" argument. It's hard when she counter argues with you. It's all, well I talked to this person who says this, and I read this, against who we talked to and what we read. Either way-we are sitting ducks at the moment. BLEH! Now I'm just annoyed and rambling. I was hoping typing this out would de-stress me and I could finally sleep, but I'm not so sure now.
No comments:
Post a Comment